I am watching Mad Men on Netflix

[LawDeeDah]

I'm about half way through and thoroughly hooked.

It is gut wrenching to watch how the women are treated so poorly and are treated like possessions with no other condoned asperations than pleasing men, and how men are just expected to fuck around because hey, that's what they do! Not all that much has changed since that time, that is the wrencher as well. Things are pretty well the same but much of it is slipped into the shadowy secret world instead of blatant and in your face as exhibited in the times of the show.

Great show tho and some of the women characters are nothing but awesome - having to work within this anti-woman structure.

I started off absolutely detesting Draper, who represents very well what I absolutely detest about the white male privilege thing, for the obvious reasons but I managed to rip myself away from that and appreciate the complexities and different dimensions of his character and the characters of the rest of the cast.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. I entered the work force in 1969.

Sexual harassment was rampant, overt, and accepted in those days, and there wasn't a damn thing you could do about it except either put up with it or lose your job. It still exists, despite laws against it. It's not nearly as out in the open as it was, but we still have a long way to go.

[NYC_SKP]

2. The horrow of dynamics on the show pales in comparison to the real world, I'll bet.

And far too many of those dynamics still exist today.

[SheilaT]

3. I entered the workforce in 1965,

and I'd say the series is very accurate. I almost never worked in any kind of an office, and I wasn't anywhere near NYC, but the show has an aura of verisimilitude that can't be faked. I do recall they got something a little wrong a season or two ago, but since it doesn't come readily to mind, it would have been something in the details, not anything really crucial to the story line.

One thing they are NOT getting right is how much older all these people should be looking, given that they were all smoking all the time. Smoking is very aging, along with other not very nice things. Joanie, especially, should be looking a good ten to fifteen years older than she does.

[NV Whino]

4. I was working in the ad industry during that time

I watch the show and say, "Oh my god! We did that?" Yeah, we drank too much, smoked too much and treated women like shit. Still, it was the coming of age for women in the executive work force. No, we weren't paid the same as men, but we became the art directors and account executives. Some went on to own their own agencies. It was an exciting time in that industry.

I remember some of those classic ad campaigns, too.

[LawDeeDah]

5. Some of my favorite parts are of the team blue skying.

That kodak projector 'wheel' that turned into a carousel was so very well done. I wish there were more examples of this in the series.

I may dislike Draper intensely for many reasons but as far as genius brain for advertising goes, he was fantastic.

[LawDeeDah]

6. Here is actor Jon Hamm on Don Draper.

http://time.com/56054/jon-hamm-mad-men-qa/

Well said.

Are you surprised how much a lot of fans like Don Draper?

Well, people like Walter White, too, and the guy’s a murderer. People like Tony Soprano, another murderer. There’s a vicarious thrill to seeing these people do bad things on television and mostly get away with it. People love Omar [the stickup man from The Wire]. You like the bad guys sometimes if they’re not too bad or if you feel like there’s a heart of gold somehow.

But I’m always surprised when people are like, “I want to be just like Don Draper.” I’m like, “You want to be a miserable drunk?” I don’t think you want to be anything like that guy. You want to be like the guy on a poster maybe but not the actual guy. The actual guy’s rotting from the inside out and has to pull it together.

But, and again that’s one of the biggest themes on the show: the outside looks great, the inside is rotten. That’s New York City. That’s America in the sixties. That’s all that stuff. It all looks great and when you scratch the surface you’re like, “Oh, it’s hollow and it’s rotten.” It’s advertising. Put some Vaseline on that food, make it shine and look good. Can’t eat it, but it looks good.

[nomorenomore08]

8. I like the self-awareness he has about the character. I think most good actors share that quality.

[choie]

7. I think It's Jon Hamm's

Incredibly nuanced Performance that makes the audience care about him even though he does awful things. He's wonderful in the role.

[MadrasT]

9. I watched all the way up through part of season 5.

Then somehow it lost its charm for me. I may pick it up from there and continue at some point.

Anyway, yeah, I had very much the same reaction. I was born at that time and my head wants to explode if I think about what the world would have been like for me if I were born just 20 or so years earlier. I am totally unsuitable for a wife/mother role, and life would have been much harder for me.

But I think you are right... a lot of attitudes are just the same, only hiding under the surface. The attitudes didn't go away, it is just politically incorrect to express them so blatantly now.

[seabeyond]

10. i do not like mad men. i cannot quite articulate why. at first it was a lesson for all, then morphed

to conditioning what the men want the world to go back to, the place women should hold, the inherent right/privilege/entitlement of white men.

[LawDeeDah]

11. I know what you mean.

I am sure there are a lot of men watching the show and hoping for those good ole days to be back and make snide jokes about it. You see on one of the quotes from Hamm the actor that some men Want to be like Draper.

That is how I felt at first - Is this supposed to be a history lesson of sorts, or is this just wallowing in that wonderful past where men, white straight men, considered themselves masters of the universe. The coming up with the slogan for the Jaguar account was especially hard hitting and nauseous. Knowing more about Hamm the producer/actor, I know this is a look back to the rotten times with the shiney facade but it will not be taken as education by the impossibly stunned and dense.

But I carry on -- there is Sally to watch, for one thing. She is a great actress and a bit of a balance to all the mysogynistic circle jerking. Joanie is a heroine with her strength and grace and wisdom.